Suit seeks files from Charlottesville case

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — The U.S. Justice Department must provide documents used in its criminal case against a white nationalist, who with others is being sued in a civil rights complaint over the violence in 2017 in Charlottesville, the lawsuit’s plaintiffs say.

Community members who filed the lawsuit against prominent white supremacists, neo-Nazis and hate groups contend Justice Department lawyers have without explanation wrongly denied their request for evidence in the investigation of James Alex Fields Jr.

Fields is serving life in prison after pleading guilty last year to federal hate crimes. Fields drove a car into a group of people, authorities said, killing 32-year-old counterprotester Heather Heyer and injuring more than two dozen others. Fields is among the lawsuit defendants accused of engaging in a violent conspiracy to violate the rights of the counterdemonstrators. The lawsuit is set to go to trial in October.

In a motion filed on Friday, the plaintiffs’ lawyers want a judge to force the government lawyers to provide in part documents the FBI collected from Fields’ computer and cellphone, as well as recordings of his phone calls while in federal custody. The lawyers filed subpoenas for the documents last September. A month later, according to Friday’s filing, the Justice Department wrote that it “would not be in the best interests of the United States” to provide the information requested.